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Psychologists examine disturbing trends, offer tips on copingWASHINGTON – People who are cyberstalked or harassed online experience higher levels of stress and trauma than people who are stalked or harassed in person, according to a presentation at the American Psychological Association's 119th Annual Convention. "Increasingly, stalkers use modern technology to monitor and torment their victims, and one in four victims report some form of cyberstalking, such as threatening emails or instant messaging," said Elizabeth Carll, PhD, in a talk entitled, "Electronic Harassment and Cyberstalking: Intervention, Prevention and Public Policy." Emotional responses to the stress and trauma experienced by victims may...

By using state of the art technology, Facebook is able to suggest which friends might be in photos that users upload. But the feature has raised concerns among privacy advocates, who worry the site is saving sensitive biometric data. Although users can opt out of the service, this only prevents Facebook from identifying them in photos automatically - it does not stop the service from gathering data from photos. Johannes Caspar, Hamburg’s data protection official, on Tuesday said the feature was a serious violation of people’s rights to determine what is done with their personal data. He added that German...

A report, published Friday by Wired, says that Los Angeles-based video streaming site Hulu has cut its use of web analytics service Kissmetrics -- a startup founded by former Orange County entrepreneur Neil Patel -- after U.C. Berkeley security researchers detected the use of undetectable cookie code by Kissmetrics. The report from Wired said that those researchers found that Kissmetrics tracking service cannot be evaded, even when users block their cookies, turn off storage in Flash, or use "incognito mode" in a browser. Kissmetrics, via co-founder Hiten Shah, told Wired that "nothing illegal" about the techniques it was using. Patel...

Internet providers would be forced to keep logs of their customers' activities for one year--in case police want to review them in the future--under legislation that a U.S. House of Representatives committee approved today. The 19 to 10 vote represents a victory for conservative Republicans, who made data retention their first major technology initiative after last fall's elections, and the Justice Department officials who have quietly lobbied for the sweeping new requirements, a development first reported by CNET. A last-minute rewrite of the bill expands the information that commercial Internet providers are required to store to include customers' names, addresses,...

Boing-boing notices that “yesterday, the House Judiciary Committee voted 19-10 for H.R. 1981, a data-retention bill that will require your ISP to spy on everything you do online and save records of it for 12 months. California Rep Zoe Lofgren, one of the Democrats who opposed the bill, called it a ‘data bank of every digital act by every American’ that would ‘let us find out where every single American visited Web sites.’” The databank is “for the children”. HR 1981 is actually titled “Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011″. Its sponsors say “the Protecting Children from Internet...

Internet providers would be forced to keep logs of their customers' activities for one year--in case police want to review them in the future--under legislation that a U.S. House of Representatives committee approved today.... A last-minute rewrite of the bill expands the information that commercial Internet providers are required to store to include customers' names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses, some committee members suggested. By a 7-16 vote, the panel rejected an amendment that would have clarified that only IP addresses must be stored.

IF YOUR face and name are anywhere on the web, you may be recognised whenever you walk the streets—not just by cops but by any geek with a computer. That seems to be the conclusion from some new research on the limits of privacy. For suspected miscreants, and people chasing them, face-recognition technology is old hat. Brazil, preparing for the soccer World Cup in 2014, is already trying out pairs of glasses with mini-cameras attached; policemen wearing them could snap images of faces, easy to compare with databases of criminals. More authoritarian states love such methods: photos are taken at...

Facebook's marketing director has called for an end to on-line anonymity, saying internet users would "behave a lot better" if everyone had to use real names when surfing or posting on the internet. Randi Zuckerberg, Facebook’s marketing director and sister of multi-millionaire founder Mark, made the comments during a round table discussion on cyber bullying... Mrs Zuckerberg argued the end of on-line anonymity could help curb the trend of trolling and harassment on the web. Speaking at a Marie Claire panel discussion on social media, she said: "I think anonymity on the Internet has to go away." "People behave a...

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has proposed to begin collecting data on the race, gender identity, ethnicity, disability status, primary language, sex and sexual orientation of every patient and every citizen. The federal government needs to hear from you! DEADLINE - The deadline for your public comments is this coming Monday, August 1st at 11:59 p.m. EDT. However, if you plan to mail your comment by U.S. Post, it must be postmarked today, Wed, July 27.

With almost 200 million users monthly of the Gmail service alone, there’s no shortage of juicy email content from which Google can serve up a cacophony of those automated “creepy” integrated advertising links in and around your email messages based upon your email habits. When Google launched its Buzz product and automatically opted all of its users IN rather than OUT, the outcry for privacy and data protection was deafening.

A favorite pastime of Internet users is to share their location: services like Google Latitude can inform friends when you are nearby; another, Foursquare, has turned reporting these updates into a game. But as a German Green party politician, Malte Spitz, recently learned, we are already continually being tracked whether we volunteer to be or not. Cellphone companies do not typically divulge how much information they collect, so Mr. Spitz went to court to find out exactly what his cellphone company, Deutsche Telekom, knew about his whereabouts. The results were astounding. In a six-month period — from Aug 31, 2009,...

WASHINGTON -- Arizona Sen. John McCain has called for a Senate Select Committee on Cyber Security and Electronic Intelligence Leaks to address the problem of computer hackers. The Arizona Republican made the request Wednesday in a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Cyber security proposals have been put forth by numerous Senate committees, the White House and various government agencies, McCain said, however, the Senate has yet embrace one comprehensive proposal that adequately addresses the government-wide threats we face. "With so many agencies and the White House moving forward with cyber security proposals,...

Have you heard about The Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011? It's the latest in a l-o-n-g line of just terrible bills proposed to calm (though never quite eliminate) the fears of middle-aged people about what that scary Internet might potentially do to Our Children. There's a hearing on the legislation taking place as we speak. Here's Cato's Jim Harper: It's got everything: porn, children, the Internet. And it's got everything: financial services providers dragooned into law enforcement, data retention requirements heaped on Internet service providers, expanded "administrative subpoena" authority. (Administrative subpoenas are an improvisation to accommodate the...

The number of dollar bills rolling off the great government presses here and in Fort Worth fell to a modern low last year. Production of $5 bills also dropped to the lowest level in 30 years. And for the first time in that period, the Treasury Department did not print any $10 bills. The meaning seems clear. The future is here. Cash is in decline. You can’t use it for online purchases, nor on many airplanes to buy snacks or duty-free goods. Last year, 36 percent of taxi fares in New York were paid with plastic. At Commerce, a restaurant...

The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee is weighing fresh concerns about the sweeping nature of domestic spying using one controversial section of the Patriot Act. This particular part of that law is notable because it has been divisive for years — and because during those years President Obama has quietly moved from being a Senator skeptical of the provisions to being an enthusiastic spy chief whose Administration embraces them. Last Tuesday the committee met to consider the worries of some members, mostly Democrats, who say the Justice Department has drafted a breathtakingly broad interpretation of Section 215 of the Patriot Act....

You now have another reason to check your privacy settings. According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, Social Intelligence Corp, has been given the legal thumbs up to archive seven years worth of your Facebook posts. These archives will be used by SIC (oh the applicability of the acronym) as part of their background checking service for job applicants. There are a couple sides to this argument that have been hashed out many times over. A hiring manager could say that they were glad they discovered that Johnny the master of the great resume also drank heavily every night and...

The Federal Trade Commission has approved a controversial firm which scours social media sites to check on job applicants. It means anything you've ever said in public on sites including Facebook, Twitter and even Craigslist could be seen by your would-be employer. The Washington-based commission has ruled the firm, Social Intelligence Corporation, complies with the Fair Credit Reporting Act - even though it keeps the results of its searches on file for seven years.

The Federal Trade Commission has approved a controversial firm which scours social media sites to check on job applicants. It means anything you've ever said in public on sites including Facebook, Twitter and even Craigslist could be seen by your would-be employer.[Snip]It raises the frightening prospect of any social media posting, even it's years old or was meant as a joke, being used in background checks. Applicants who use online pseudonyms aren't safe, either - the firm uses special software to link those nicknames with real, offline names known to employers.

Yahoo! Mail plans to snoop on your emails. Accepting its updated T&Cs give it the right to read your messages and target relevant advertising. Would you be happy if your emails were analysed in this way? It’s eight in the evening, you’re juggling a glass of wine and a sneaky fag in one hand, while emailing away with the other. You’re venting to your best friend about the latest slings and arrows of outrageous fortune to have befallen your life; secure in the knowledge that nobody’s eavesdropping on your conversation. Well, before you raise your glass in a congratulatory toast...

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a Vermont law that barred the sale of doctors' prescription data to drug companies, ruling the law interfered with the pharmaceutical industry's First Amendment right to market its products. Data companies such as IMS Health Inc. gather information from pharmacies on which medicines doctors are prescribing and how often. Drug makers buy the data, using it to refine their marketing pitches and measure which salespeople are the most effective. A 2007 Vermont law effectively banned the practice in the state. It said data-mining companies can't sell the prescription information for marketing...